


And Dream Of Sheep

by ivorydice



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Car Accidents, Concussions, Gen, Hurt Noctis Lucis Caelum, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 18:39:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16393040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorydice/pseuds/ivorydice
Summary: He just wanted to lie down again. Go to sleep and pretend like none of this was happening. Maybe then the pain would go away, the cold would leave him alone, and everything would be better. He could wake up again and he would be warm and nothing would hurt.After a car accident, Noctis gets lost in the snow.





	And Dream Of Sheep

**Author's Note:**

> For [HurtNoctWeek](http://hurt-noct-week.tumblr.com/) Day 1+2: Car crash + Concussion.
> 
> Title comes from Kate Bush's song of the same name. I had it on repeat so much while writing this and now it's STUCK IN MY HEAD SEND HELP.

  
  
It was ridiculous. He didn’t like to think of himself as someone with road rage, but with the traffic crawling to a standstill on yet another street - the fifth time so far - Noctis was ready to start honking the horn with the rest of the cars stuck in line. Like that would actually do anything to solve this mess. Maybe not, but he thought he could see how it might be a little therapeutic after waiting for so long.  
  
And to think it was all because of the damn weather. The snowstorm they’d had recently had been unreal, far heavier than they were used to getting. The resulting effects it had on traffic, with streets and highways getting backed up for miles, had been chaotic enough for the news to report on it. Insomnia simply wasn’t used to so much snow, and it was showing painfully.  
  
Noctis let out a sigh and sat back in the seat. He pressed his foot down on the gas pedal to let the car roll along a little further as the queue moved forward just slightly. He wondered if he could have already arrived at Prompto’s by now if he’d taken the train after all. But the cold aggravated his old injuries in the worst way, and he’d been feeling it a lot lately with the way his knee kept locking up in his training sessions. Travelling on foot and by train really hadn't been too appealing.  
  
Ignis, of course, had offered to go in his stead, but Noctis simply hadn’t had the heart to take him up on his offer. He’d been working far too hard recently, bordering on exhaustion, and Noctis was loath to further add to the burden.  
  
And hell, this whole thing had been his idea anyway. With his parents away for a while on a business trip, and living in one of the areas affected worst by the snow, Prompto had been having difficulty getting to the Citadel for his crownsguard training. Noctis had already been staying there for the same reasons, so it made sense to have Prompto do the same thing.  
  
He just hadn’t liked the idea of making Prompto travel the whole distance while it was so cold, and it hadn't seemed fair to send Ignis out to get him. So Noctis had managed to come to a compromise by borrowing Ignis’s car and driving it himself.  
  
In hindsight, it all seemed like far more trouble than it had any right to be.  
  
At least he was warm, shut inside with the heater and the radio like this. And at least Prompto could be warm and comfortable once he picked him up, instead of waiting around in freezing train stations and walking in the snowy streets with those wrecked snow boots he kept forgetting to replace.  
  
He could deal with this. The traffic couldn’t last  _forever_.  
  
His phone began vibrating in its holder attached to the dash. Noctis quickly glanced down at the screen before swiping his finger along it. “Insomnia traffic, how may I help you?”  
  
A loud snort erupted in the car. “ _Dude_ ,” Prompto said.  
  
Noctis grinned. “I’m still on my way. Traffic’s a bitch.”  
  
“ _Yeah, I figured,_ ” Prompto said, “ _Just wanted to check in on you, make sure you hadn’t killed anyone._ ”  
  
“Believe me, I’m close.”  
  
Prompto chuckled on the other end. “ _You know, I coulda just come by train. Would’ve saved all the hassle._ ”  
  
“Yeah, that’s if the trains aren’t delayed,” Noctis retorted. He let the car roll forward again as the traffic inched a little further along. “And if your street isn’t already buried in snow. How bad is it?”  
  
“ _It’s...not as bad as before, but I think more snow’s on the way real soon._ ” He tapered off, clearing his throat almost awkwardly. “ _Anyway, are you sure this is okay? Me staying over like this_?”  
  
Noctis rolled his eyes. “It’s fine. Really. We’re gonna have a blast, and it beats being stuck in your house because of the weather.” There was a muffled thud on the other end and a muttered curse, and Noctis glanced over at his phone suspiciously. “You okay?”  
  
“ _I’m fine, I just bumped my head on the window,_ ” Prompto grumbled, and Noctis had to fight back his snort of amusement. “ _The snow’s started up again. And you’re right, it beats staying here. Thanks, man, I appreciate it._ ”  
  
“Mmhmm,” Noctis nodded, distracted, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel again. If it was snowing where Prompto was, then it wouldn’t be long before it was snowing along this particular road too, and he would prefer to get there before it got out of hand. The traffic had been picking up a little bit, but it was probably only a matter of time before they were at another standstill.  
  
But he knew this area. He could try and get onto a different route, take a few different roads here and there, maybe cut through a local industrial park. That particular area wasn’t really meant for the public to travel through at their own leisure, but who would stop him if it came down to it?  
  
Noctis winced at that thought. It was definitely an abuse of his power, one Ignis probably wouldn’t approve of if he ever caught wind of it, but what Ignis didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Besides, Noctis doubted he was the first person to cut through there anyway. Hell, Ignis would probably do it himself if he was driven to such lengths.  
  
He just didn’t like the idea of Prompto sat there on his own in his empty house, waiting. Maybe even for hours, all while the snow steadily piled up outside until he was trapped.  
  
And as the traffic slowed to another standstill, and Prompto continued chattering on the other end of the phone, it seemed like the best decision to make.  
  
“Hey, Prompto, I gotta go,” Noctis said. “I’m gonna see about getting out of this traffic. See you soon?”

“ _Yep, sure_ ,” Prompto chirped. “ _I’ll be right here._ ”  
  
He had to wait another few minutes while the cars continued to crawl forwards, and he turned onto a different road the moment the opportunity rose up, slowly breaking away from the worst of the traffic. Other drivers seemed to have similar ideas, taking less conventional routes to get to wherever they were going, and Noctis had a flash of horror that every route would be jammed just like this one.  
  
Luck seemed to be on his side. It took awhile, but he eventually left other cars behind, leaving the bright, busy roads for darker, more abandoned ones.  
  
Finally, he was making  _actual_  progress, buildings and streetlights gliding by outside, the snow crunching under the tyres. He had to sigh at the absurdity at how taking the longer route to Prompto’s house could actually be the quicker way of getting there after all.  
  
Well, whatever. As long as things were finally working out, he couldn’t complain about it. The sooner he got to Prompto’s house, the sooner he could get him out of there and they could hole up at the Citadel and wait out the storm.  
  
The business park seemed devoid of life, not a sign of anyone on the streets, either on foot or by car, and the buildings were looming shadows behind the streetlights. If it wasn’t for the snow having already been worn down on the roads by cars, he would have thought the place had been abandoned entirely.  
  
A far cry from earlier. Noctis scoffed at the thought and turned as the road curved to the right.  
  
It all happened too fast. Whether he oversteered or not as he turned the corner, he couldn’t tell, but the back end of the car was sliding out to the left, dragging him along a sudden patch of ice.  
  
Pulling the car out of control.  
  
Heart in his throat, breath stuck, he tried to turn into the skid, but it was a little too much, and he cursed. The tyres kept sliding out of control, and the car kept moving.  
  
The guardrail was coming closer and closer in the headlights, far too quick to process.  
  
He heard the crash, the sound of metal connecting against metal, loud and explosive, but he couldn’t see much of it. As the front of the car hit the guardrail, the impact had him careening forwards in his seat, head slamming into the steering wheel before he could think to protect himself.  
  
The hit felt strange. Awful. All encompassing and sudden and throughout his skull. And yet somehow distant. Far away.  
  
His vision went black.  
  
When things came back into focus, it was slowly and frustratingly. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, head pressed into the steering wheel, blearily taking in the lights of the dials on the dashboard. Any shift had his brain feeling heavy and pulsating, a stabbing headache just waiting to happen, so he didn’t dare move just yet.  
  
It actually hit him then. He had just crashed Ignis’s car. Noctis was a dead man walking, he was sure of it. It was just a matter of who got to him first; Ignis, Gladio, his dad maybe, hell even Prompto would have something to say about this. Oh god, they were all going to be so mad.  
  
Slowly, he pushed himself away from the steering wheel, and he had to groan at the heaviness in his head. The way everything felt a little unsteady. He leaned back into the seat with a heavy breath, trying to breathe through the way everything was spinning.  
  
His forehead stung a little, above his left eyebrow, and when he reached his fingers up to inspect the pain, he found out why. There was blood on his fingers, fresh and warm and welling up from a cut. That’s what that warm trickling sensation on the side of his head was.  
  
Well, it couldn’t be too bad. Certainly not as bad as the damage the car had taken. Noctis looked up out of the windshield and winced at the bent metal, twisted and moved out of the way to make room for the guardrail.  
  
The engine was no longer running. Noctis took a breath, ran a shaking hand through his hair, and tried to start the car to life again. It sounded like it was trying, like it was almost spluttering to life, but it was dead again within seconds.  
  
Noctis cursed and tried again, turning the keys in the ignition over and over, but the car only let out that same struggling noise and refused to start up.  
  
“Damn it,” he muttered, closing his eyes and resting against the steering wheel again.  
  
What the hell was he going to do now? It wasn’t like anyone was around to help or give him a ride out of here. He would be stuck if he didn't do something.  
  
He could call Gladio or Ignis. Tell them what had happened. Sure, he’d be in for one hell of a lecture about driving in the snow, Gladio would probably drag him out driving again someday, but he could bear that. Hell, he kind of deserved it.  
  
He reached his hand out, fumbling without looking, closing his fingers around his phone and slipping it out of its holder. The light of the screen hurt his head when he brought it near his face, but he squinted through it, swiping through the menus until he had Ignis’s number on the screen.  
  
He hesitated, thumb hovering over the call icon.  
  
He could call a tow truck instead. Delay the inevitable lectures for a little while longer so he could get his head together and prepare. Maybe even get a head start on the repairs the car would need.  
  
Yeah, right, like a tow truck could get past all that traffic from before. They wouldn’t consider it worth it, and they were probably only focusing on proper emergencies while the snow was disrupting everything.  
  
Noctis sighed and pocketed his phone.  
  
He could just keep going then. It wasn’t too far to Prompto’s neighbourhood from here. He could go there and maybe hide away forever and pretend this whole thing hadn’t happened.  
  
God, his head felt awful though. Any movement had him wincing, had the world spinning and nausea building in his stomach and chest. He didn’t even want to get up anymore.  
  
He pressed his temple to the car door window and shut his eyes, trying to will the rolling in his stomach away, trying to force the throbbing pressure out of his head. It hurt, pulsing in time with the ringing and roaring in his ears. He wanted to hide away from it all.  
  
A few minutes then. It couldn’t hurt to let himself rest for a few minutes. To get his bearings back.  
  
He didn’t know how long he sat there, drifting on the edge of sleep and listening to the car settle around him. Long enough for the air around him to grow colder, a light chill drifting in through his hoodie, and long enough that the feeling of slipping away became uncomfortable. It made his head feel dizzy and strange. He didn’t like it.  
  
He had to get up. He couldn’t stay here forever; Prompto was still waiting for him.

Noctis unclasped his seatbelt, trying not to wince at how every movement seemed to aggravate his head and how every noise felt like it stabbed through his ears, explosive and harsh. Too loud, everything was  _too loud_.  
  
He shoved open the car door and stepped out into the snow. Luckily his snowboots had a decent enough grip on them; he could already feel how slippy the road was. Still, he kept his hand on the roof of the car for balance as he climbed out, leaning against the door for a moment once it was shut.  
  
The car was on the very curve of the road, lit up under the streetlight right next to it, and Noctis had to cover his eyes with a groan. Everything was so  _bright_. It seemed like everything was set out on aggravating his head.  
  
He couldn’t stay here. He had to get moving.  
  
Which way had he been going? Noctis turned to look, clenched his hands when the movement made his head spin, the roads before him swaying from side to side. There were fresh tyre tracks on the road, coming from the direction he was facing and ending at the car. So, he’d been turning round the corner, right? Why couldn’t he remember properly?  
  
It didn’t matter. It had to be the way to go.  
  
  
~&~  
  
  
The problem with leaving the car behind was that the cold was bone chilling, and it spread through him quickly. It seeped through the material of his hoodie and his t-shirt and his jeans, it dug down to every vein and molecule of him. His breath came out like a white fog, his cheeks and nose and his fingertips burned. He found himself shivering quickly enough.  
  
The cold had seeped into his knee too, brought back the ache that had been abating. He’d been able to ignore it for a while - nothing compared to the ache in his head - but soon he was limping a little, shocks of pain shooting up and down his leg.  
  
He wished he’d stayed in the car after all. His head  _hurt_ , and with every step he took through the snow the world seemed a little more unstable. Tilting this way and that, the street ahead growing longer and longer.  
  
It all looked the same. Darkened buildings and streetlights and white snow and the never ending road, stretching on and on and on. No other person around, no other cars driving by.  
  
No one to help him.  
  
His knee locked up suddenly and he went down, a cry ripping from his throat. He tried to throw his hands out to stop his fall, but his body just wasn’t  _working_  right anymore, and he collapsed onto his side in the snow.  
  
His stomach lurched from the sudden movement and he nearly threw up. He had to lay still while the world was spinning around and around like a carousel. He didn’t like it. He wanted it to stop.  
  
When he could finally push himself up into a sitting position, his clothes felt a little wet, snow clinging to him like it didn’t want to let go. His body had gone from shivering to outright shaking, and he couldn’t stop it. It just wouldn’t stop.  
  
He had to keep moving.  
  
Noctis bit his lip and dragged his body upwards, struggling to his feet. His head felt even  _worse_  now, and he pressed a hand to his hair, closing his eyes,  _praying_  for it to stop.  
  
He just wanted to lie down again. Go to sleep and pretend like none of this was happening. Maybe then the pain would go away, the cold would leave him alone, and everything would be better. He could wake up again and he would be warm and nothing would hurt.  
  
But he had to get Prompto. He was supposed to pick him up.  
  
Noctis looked around, needing to take a second to balance himself and regain his bearings. But no matter which direction he looked in, everything looked the same to him. He glanced over his shoulder, and that looked the same too.  
  
He didn’t—he didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know where he was and Prompto was stuck in his house on his own, waiting for Noctis to come find him. But how could he find him if he didn’t know where he was?  
  
Maybe Prompto would know. He could guide Noctis to his house, and then everything would be okay.  
  
He slipped his phone out of his pocket with sore fingers, trying to stop the way he was still shaking, the way his teeth were chattering, as he struggled to work out the menus. His head felt slippery and heavy, like he couldn’t think properly. It was  _frustrating_  how it took him a while to actually bring up Prompto’s number and dial it.  
  
Noctis sighed, running a hand over his eyes, and he brought the phone to his ear.  
  
The ringing sound stopped. “ _Hey_ ,” Prompto’s voice was too loud, too cheery, and it cut through Noctis’s skull so sharply that he had to fight back a groan, “ _Still stuck in traffic?_ ”  
  
Noctis frowned. “What?” It took him a moment to process the words, to  _remember_. “No, there’s—there’s no traffic.”  
  
“ _Oh_ ,” Prompto answered. “ _Oh! Crap, are you driving? Did you—hey, did you_ seriously _call me while you’re_ driving _? Dude!_ ”  
  
He wanted to tell Prompto to speak quietly, and to  _slow down_ , he couldn’t keep up with the words spilling out into his ear, but his mouth wouldn’t work properly and he couldn’t think of the proper words to tell him. “No, m’not driving.”  
  
He looked around again, at the imposing dark buildings and trees and the bright streetlights that stabbed into his vision. It all looked the same as before, he’d been walking through this forever and he just didn’t know anymore. Maybe he never had. “Don’t know where I am.”  
  
A pause. “ _You got lost? Well, what does it look like? Where you are right now, I mean. Maybe I know it._ ”  
  
That was why he’d  _called_ , damn it, but he couldn’t think of the right words to use. It was a mistake calling, speaking only made everything more confusing. It only made his head hurt even more.  
  
Noctis groaned and reached his free hand up to his hair, pressing it over the throbbing there. “I dunno, there’s buildings, and it’s all dark,” he answered. “I don’t know where I am.”  
  
“ _Noct?_ ” Prompto’s tone sounded funny. Strange.  
  
“M’cold,” Noctis told him. “Snow’s cold. It’s in my boots.”  
  
Another pause, a little longer this time. Where did he keep going? “ _You’re outside? Why aren’t you in the car?_ ”  
  
Noctis felt a laugh bark out of him, and he groaned again because it only made the pain worse. His blood roared in his ears, angry like the sea. “I crashed the car,” he managed to say. “Ignis ‘gonna be so mad.”  
  
“ _You_ crashed _the car?_ ” Prompto’s voice was painfully loud this time, and Noctis gasped at the way it went through his skull. “ _You crashed—oh my god, are you okay?_ ”  
  
No, he wasn’t okay. Everything looked the same and he was supposed to pick Prompto up already, but he didn’t know how to get there, and everything seemed so far away and his leg hurt and his head ached and he was  _so cold—_ and he tried to tell Prompto that, tried to tell him everything, except all that would come out was a choked, “I don’t know where I am.”  
  
“ _Okay,_ ” Prompto’s voice sounded a little high pitched. And soft, like he was trying to be soothing. “ _Okay, Noct? I think maybe you should hang up and call Ignis or Glad_ —”  
  
“No!” Noctis cut in. “They’re gonna be so mad, and—and—” He stared up at the dark buildings,  _needing_  for Prompto to understand. If he hung up then he would be on his own again, with the cold and the pain and the endless roaring in his ears. “Don’t leave me on my own.”  
  
“ _Okay,_ ” Prompto repeated. It sounded like he was moving, distant thuds coming from the other end of the call. “ _Just hold on a sec, bud. I’m gonna call them with the house phone. Don’t hang up on me, you hear?_ ”  
  
Ignis was going to be mad at him. Gladio too. But he couldn’t find the words to let Prompto know that and his tongue was too heavy to use, thick and useless in his mouth.  
  
The roaring in his ears was growing louder again, the rush of blood throbbing harder. Noctis bit his lip against another wave of nausea and dizziness. There was a stone wall nearby, waist-level. Maybe he could go and sit by that, if his knee would stop locking up on him.  
  
He was so tired. He just wanted to sleep.  
  
Prompto’s voice drifted back to him, distant and strange. “ _Gladio, we’ve got a big problem._ ”  
  
Noctis frowned. What was Prompto talking about? Was Gladio there?  
  
He tried to listen further, to keep up, but Prompto’s voice came in and out, drowned out by the sounds in Noctis’s head, “ _—says he doesn’t know where he is. I think he’s hurt—keeps slurring his words—he sounds out of it. Okay. Noct, you still there, buddy?_ ”  
  
Noctis blinked. “What?”  
  
“ _Gladio and Ignis are gonna come and get you, okay? They’re on the way. You gotta stay on the line, though._ ”  
  
“No,” Noctis shook his head. “No, they’re gonna be mad. Tell them to stay.”  
  
“ _They’re not mad, Noct, they’re worried about you. We all are._ ” Prompto sounded downright pleading now, his voice nearly a whine. “ _It’s okay. You’re not in trouble. Just keep talking to me, okay?_ ”  
  
There was nothing he could do to stop them out here. Maybe it was a good idea that Ignis and Gladio were on their way, they could help him find his way out of this place and he could finally get some rest. “Okay,” Noctis answered. “I’ll—okay.”  
  
“ _Good,_ ” Prompto said. He had that soothing tone again, soft, like he was talking to a frightened animal. “ _Don’t worry. Everything’s gonna be okay, Noct._ ”  
  
Noctis sighed as he slowly made his way over to the wall. He leaned back against it and slid down until he was sitting on the snow covered path. His jeans would get wet again but he simply couldn’t hold himself up anymore, he couldn’t stand the way everything tilted and spun in circles.  
  
He stared up at the dark buildings again and he waited.  
  
It began to snow.  
  
  
~&~  
  
  
They bundled up in winter clothing and made their way down to the garage in record time, climbing into Gladio’s car without a moment’s hesitation.  
  
Ignis’s heart had been in his throat from the very second Gladio had relayed Prompto’s message to him. If there were two words he never wanted to hear together, it was ‘ _Noct_ ’ and ‘ _accident_ ’. There were simply too many bad memories from when they were children; the fear that Noctis wasn’t going to make it, and then the sheer awfulness of watching him struggle through pain and recovery afterwards.  
  
From what he could tell from Gladio’s conversation over the phone, however, Noctis was at least conscious and talking. Not entirely lucid apparently and unable to get to shelter, but he  _conscious_. Alive.  
  
But he was outside, in this weather, and Ignis could recall with horrifying clarity the amount of protective clothing he  _didn’t have_. He’d said he hadn’t needed to wrap up, that he didn’t intend to leave the car and the heater would help keep him warm.  
  
That plan certainly hadn’t played out the way Noctis had expected, and Ignis felt justified in his urgency to get to him. Judging by the way Gladio’s jaw was clenched and his eyes were stiff, he was feeling just as anxious.  
  
As they took off and drove away from the Citadel, Gladio turned the phone call with Prompto onto speaker, jamming it into the holder attached to his dash. “Talk to me, Prompto,” he bit out, voice low and gruff, and he would have sounded angry to anyone who didn’t know him, “How’s he doing?”  
  
“ _I don’t know_ ,” Prompto’s voice rang out in the car, thin and worried, becoming quieter as he said, “ _Noct? You still with me, man?_ ”  
  
Ignis wished he could hear Noctis for himself, but having Prompto juggle between two phone calls was chaotic enough, and they couldn’t take the chance that Noctis might no longer be aware enough to answer his phone. They would just have to cope with relayed messages for now.  
  
His own phone nearly creaked under his tight grip, the plastic straining under the pressure, and he had to force himself to focus and keep calm. Noctis wouldn’t benefit from any of them losing their composure.  
  
So he worked on bringing up the menus for the tracking device in Noctis’s phone, a safety precaution the King and the crownsguard had insisted upon that Ignis was immensely grateful for now. The only troublesome part was the time it took to input the password to access it and the waiting for the thing to track and close in on Noctis’s location. It seemed to take forever.  
  
“ _He’s still awake, at least,_ ” Prompto’s voice came back to them suddenly, “ _Guys, please hurry, I don’t think he’s doing well._ ”  
  
“Damn it,” Gladio muttered. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel, knuckles whitening. “Keep him awake, you understand? Do  _not_  let him stop talking.”  
  
“ _I’m trying._ ”  
  
Ignis let out a breath. “I have his location.” Quickly, he removed Gladio’s phone from the holder and clipped his own in instead, displaying the map of the city and the quickest route to Noctis’s location.  
  
“What’s he doing  _there_?” Gladio said. “Isn’t that a business district?”  
  
“He must have been trying to avoid the traffic,” Ignis muttered. How typical it was that they weren’t facing much traffic themselves. It must have been abating for some time, the roads were more or less abandoned now.  
  
Gladio scoffed, shaking his head bitterly. “God damn snow.”  
  
Indeed. And even now it was coming down, soft, harmless flakes in the headlights and brushing against the windows. It would be picturesque in any other situation.  
  
Not now, however. Not with Noctis out in this weather.  
  
“How fast can you go?” Ignis said, heart in his throat at the sight of the falling snow. The last thing they needed was for themselves to end up in an accident, but time was of the essence. Every second ticking by was another second Noctis could be closer to hypothermia.  
  
In response, Gladio stepped on the gas a little more. “I can get us there,” he said.  
  
They rode the rest of the way in near silence, Prompto’s distant chattering to Noctis the only lifeline they had to hold onto.  
  
When they found Ignis’s car, his stomach dropped at the sight of it, and he scrambled out into the snow to go and inspect the damage. It wasn’t the prospect of future repairs that had his blood running cold in his veins, but the idea that Noctis had gone through this, that he could be far more seriously hurt than they had anticipated.  
  
Gladio wasn’t far behind him, phone in his hand in case Prompto needed them. “Shit,” he hissed. “He must have lost control on the turn.”  
  
“Why didn’t the airbag deploy?” Ignis felt almost nauseous as he peered in through the window. The airbag should have been there, but there was no sign that it had reacted to the crash. And judging by the damage to the front of the car, it had been quite a hit.  
  
“Thing musta been faulty,” Gladio groaned.  
  
The door was unlocked when Ignis yanked on the handle. He noticed two things as he leaned inside: the keys were still in the ignition, and there was blood on the steering wheel. He quickly pulled out the keys and locked the car up, turning to their surroundings.  
  
“Noct!” he called out. His voice seemed painfully loud and sharp in the heavy silence, bouncing back at him, but he received no other reply.  
  
“Come on,” Gladio nudged him. “I see footprints. We gotta get a move on.”  
  
Sure enough, when he looked down, there were faint footprints in the snow, slowly being filled in but still there. Moving away from the car and heading over to the path. Continuing on the journey.  
  
“Yes,” Ignis nodded. “Let’s go.”  
  
They took off running.  
  
  
~&~  
  
  
“ _Noct?”_  
  
Noctis had his hand held out, watching the snow collect onto the skin of his palm, when he heard new noises. He frowned, unable to figure out what they were until he looked to his left and saw Ignis and Gladio running towards him along the road.  
  
“ _Noct? You still with me, bud?_ ”  
  
They’d actually found him. They had managed to travel along the road and know where they were going. Noctis could only stare as they crouched in front of him, feeling strangely overwhelmed and yet distant at the same time.  
  
Gladio was saying something, lips moving quickly, words tumbling out and making little sense to Noctis’s ears. “What are you doing sitting in the snow, god damn it—” He didn’t seem to be looking for an answer, still muttering as he gently took hold of Noctis’s shoulders. “Look at what you’re wearing, you’re gonna freeze to death.”  
  
“Noct?” Ignis’s gloved fingers were touching his jaw, slowly turning his head towards him. “Are you with us?”  
  
They were moving too fast, talking too fast, too loud. They were breaking the silence and the peacefulness of it all and he couldn’t keep up, couldn’t read their expressions or their eyes or even think of what to tell them.  
  
He looked at his other hand, at the phone with Prompto still waiting on the line, and he held it out to them. “I’m talking to Prompto,” he said.  
  
“Here, I’ve got that.” Gladio took the phone from him, turning away slightly as he continued muttering. “Yeah, it’s me. We’ve got him.”  
  
Noctis ignored the rest of what he said, letting his eyes drift down to the snow beneath them as frustration flashed through him. He wanted to snatch the phone back, but everything hurt and he felt too slow, like he could barely start moving. How could they move so quickly and so easily, knowing where to go and what to do, when he could barely even think?  
  
“Noct,” Ignis said again, voice gentle, low. “Noct, look at me.”  
  
Noctis looked up at him, his eyes and his head heavy weights. “I wanna sleep now.”  
  
“No, you  _can’t_  sleep.” Ignis looked strange. Not just the beanie pulled over his hair and the way his nose and cheeks were pink, but there was something wrong with his eyes, with his expression. “Where are you hurt?” he asked, slowly and calmly, and somehow that felt more overwhelming than the hurried frenzy Gladio’s movements seemed to be.  
  
Where was he hurt? Everywhere. His whole body seemed to be frozen and turned into one big ache. He didn’t think he could ever move his knee again. “Cold got back in,” he said. Ignis’s face scrunched up even further, like he was confused, and Noctis tried to find the right words to explain, “My knee. The cold’s made my knee hurt again.”  
  
“I see,” Ignis nodded. “But I mean in the car, Noct. Where did you hurt yourself in the car? Was it just your head or was there anything else?”  
  
Too many words, too many words. Noctis grimaced through it, forcing himself to keep his focus on them, but they were slippery words, just like his memory. Right, he’d crashed Ignis’s car. And Ignis was here, staring him down, he must have been so  _mad_ — “I’m sorry,” Noctis muttered. He reached his hand out, tried to curl his fingers around Ignis’s jacket, but those hurt too, their movements stiff. “I’m sorry I crashed your car.”  
  
Gladio was back, looking between them, Noctis’s phone no longer in sight. “We need to get him out of here  _now_ ,” he said to Ignis.  
  
“We need to know how hurt he is first,” Ignis answered, eyes sharp and piercing as he glanced over at Gladio. They turned softer when he looked back at Noctis. “Nevermind the car, Noct, I don’t care about that. Where did you hurt yourself? Your head?”  
  
“My head,” Noctis repeated. “Just my head.” He felt more fingers, Gladio’s hand close to his face as he brushed against the hair covering his forehead. Noctis flinched away from him, gasping at the pain. “Please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”  
  
“Easy, kiddo,” Gladio’s voice was softer this time, a warm rumble. “We’re gonna get you outta here, okay? You look like death. Can’t believe you’ve been walking around in those clothes.”  
  
“I—we—” Noctis blinked, not sure what he meant. “We need to get Prompto. I promised I’d pick him up.”  
  
“Don’t worry about him,” Gladio said. “I’m gonna get him later. We need to get you back to the Citadel.”  
  
Noctis shook his head as best as he could. “No, he’s gonna be on his own. I  _promised_. I just—I don’t know where I am—I don’t—I don’t know where I am—” They were still staring at him with those strange expressions, but Noctis didn’t know how else to just  _tell_  them that they needed to go and get Prompto. He could feel the frustrated tears building in his eyes, burning and unwanted and uncontrollable.  
  
“Okay,” Gladio murmured, “You’re gonna see Prompto soon, I promise. But we gotta get you out of here, Noct. Otherwise you’re gonna freeze to death.”  
  
“He’s not shivering, Gladio,” Ignis muttered.  
  
Gladio nodded. “Yeah. Time to go. We’re gonna help you up, okay?”  
  
Noctis stared at them, then nodded. He just wanted to curl up and sleep, and if going along with whatever they wanted could bring that sooner, no matter how much it might hurt to get there, then he would do it.  
  
“Alright, then. Up we get. Easy now.”  
  
They both held onto him, arms around his waist and hands grabbing onto his arms as he got his feet underneath him. He hissed at the pain flaring up in his knee, and he would have buckled, would have fallen back down to the snow if they hadn’t been holding on.  
  
“I doubt he can walk,” Ignis said.  
  
“Yeah,” Gladio replied. “I’ll carry him. On my back.”  
  
“Can you get him to the car quickly like that?”  
  
Gladio pulled a strange face. “I’ll damn well try.”  
  
Noctis had little say in the matter, which was good because he was worn out enough as it was and he didn’t think he could speak much anymore. It was frustrating as they manoeuvered him; he wanted it to be over and done with already, but they seemed insistent on moving him slowly and carefully. The frustration and the pain welling up nearly had him whining in the back of his throat.  
  
But they soon had him on Gladio’s back, limbs wrapped around him. He could rest there, fall into the warmth beneath him and cling on as they hurried. He could let it all fade and disappear now that they were here.  
  
“Don’t fall asleep, Noct,” Ignis said. At Noctis’s groan, Ignis reached up, gripped onto his shoulder. “It’s not far to the car now. Just hold on, you can’t fall asleep.”  
  
God, but he  _wanted_  to sleep, he wanted to let everything slip away into darkness so he wouldn’t have to listen to the roaring in his ears or feel the way every sound would stab through his head.  
  
“Come on, Noct,” Gladio said. “Stay awake for us, okay champ?”  
  
They must have had a good reason for it. So if they didn’t want him to sleep, then he wouldn’t. He would hold on. He wrapped his arms tighter around Gladio’s shoulders and nodded into his coat.  
  
It seemed to take forever until they reached Gladio’s car. They were just as slow with helping Noctis get down and inside, but once he was sat on the back seat they were as hurried as they’d been earlier, slamming doors and rushing around. Noctis squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block the noises out.  
  
Ignis piled into the back of the car, shutting the door behind him. “Come here,” he muttered, reaching out. “We need to get your wet things off.”  
  
Noctis wasn’t much help with it. Ignis had to do most of the work as he pulled Noctis’s boots and socks off, letting them fall to the car floor. Getting his jeans unbuckled and off was more than a struggle. Noctis had to hold his leg still and breathe through the pain in his knee, and there was no comfortable position to sit or lie in to ease the throbbing, even after the jeans were gone.  
  
The hoodie was next, but Ignis was careful to make sure they didn’t touch his head, easing the material over him and discarding it with everything else. Then he quickly stripped off his beanie and gently pulled it over Noctis’s head, keeping it away from his injury, before doing the same with his heavy jacket, his sweater underneath and then his gloves, bundling Noctis up inside each of them.  
  
There was a thump from the trunk, quick thuds outside, and then the driver door was opening as Gladio climbed inside. He handed a thick, heavy blanket back to Ignis before starting the engine, turning one of the dials until hot air was blasting through from the front of the car.  
  
Ignis wrapped Noctis up in the blanket, covering his legs with most of it, then buckled them both into their seats. Sat in the middle, he was a warm furnace pressed up against him, and Noctis could only blink up at him as Ignis beckoned him closer. Arms wrapped around him and hugged him tight, a raging inferno that Noctis could bury himself inside.  
  
“Stay with us,” Ignis was murmuring. “Stay awake. We’ll get you to safety.”  
  
It took him a while to realise the car was moving. He could feel tears welling up again, and he  _hated_  them. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I tried to—I didn’t mean to—”  
  
“Accidents happen,” Ignis said. “What’s important is that we get you home.”  
  
He still had that strange look on his face when Noctis looked up at him, passing streetlights casting strange shadows over him. “You okay?” Noctis mumbled.  
  
Ignis’s lips quirked upwards, although his eyes remained the same. “I’ll feel better when you’re warmer.”  
  
“Oh.” Noctis didn’t know what to say to that. “You’re really warm.”  
  
“That’s because you are close to freezing.”  
  
“‘Close to’ is putting it mildly,” Gladio muttered from the front of the car. “I’d love to know what made you think it was a good idea to go walking out in the snow like that.”  
  
Ignis hummed. “I think we can gather why.”  
  
“Yeah,” Gladio said.  
  
He didn’t sound happy. Was he mad at Noctis? “I just—” he tried to think back, to being inside Ignis’s car, but everything seemed so muddled now, and it hurt to think too much. “I had to get Prompto,” he told them. “And then everything looked the same and I didn’t know where I was.”  
  
“Hey, it’s okay,” Gladio said, his voice gentle again. “It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that we get you better.”  
  
Ignis’s arms tightened around him. “Don’t worry about a thing, Noct. Trust us. We’ll take care of everything.”  
  
Noctis stared up at him again, then nodded with a sigh. “Okay.”  
  
  
~&~  
  
  
Noctis was barely coherent as the Citadel’s doctors took a look at him, as they put him through test after test and eventually had him settled into a room. Of course, his exhaustion was to be expected. A terrible combination of a concussion and moderate hypothermia, the doctors said.  
  
Considering the state he'd been in, how low his temperature had been, they had gotten to him just in time. Any longer, and he would have been suffering even worse symptoms.  
  
Despite reassurances that he would make a full recovery, Ignis still felt a knot of anxiousness in his chest.  
  
Noctis had looked  _so t_ _errible_  when they’d found him, in his wet clothes, covered in snow, with his deathly pale skin, his blue lips, and fever bright eyes. His hair had been sticking to his head where he’d injured himself, blood staining the skin around his eyebrow and down his temple. And the way he’d looked at them both, almost childlike and fearful, as if he was unable to comprehend the things happening around him—  
  
It was such a far cry from how he usually behaved. It had been unnerving to see.

Ignis swallowed. Noctis would recover from this, and so it didn’t matter now.  
  
In the bed, Noctis moaned, his head moving a little to the side. His skin was still far too pale for liking, but at least he wasn’t as pale as he had been. At least he was warming up again. The blankets, the nasal cannula, the warm fluids in his IV, they would all make sure of that.  
  
When Noctis moaned again, eyes flickering open to blearily take in his surroundings, Ignis pushed himself away from the open doorway and sat in the chair beside the bed. “Noct?” he murmured. He let his hand rest gently against Noctis’s wrist, releasing a grateful sigh at the warmth he felt there. “Are you awake?”  
  
Noctis stared at him, eyes clouded with confusion and exhaustion. Although without the pain now, blessedly. The drugs would take of that. “Ig…” he started, but apparently wasn’t able to get out any more than that.  
  
Ignis gave him a small smile. “It’s alright. You can rest now. We took care of everything.”  
  
Noctis’s eyes darted around the room, brows furrowing.  
  
“You’re back in the Citadel, in the hospital ward,” Ignis told him. He squeezed the wrist under his hand when Noctis looked back at him. “You hit your head rather hard, but you’re going to be fine.”  
  
Noctis stared at him in silence for a moment. “Sorry,” he said eventually, his voice still a little slurred. “Your car….”  
  
Ignis shook his head. “There is nothing to apologise for. I’m just glad you’re alright.”  
  
Noctis’s lips twitched a little, his hand moving on the bed as if reaching out for him. He looked like he was fighting against sleep, eyes drooping shut every now and then, only to open again. It was oddly endearing.  
  
“Prompto?” Noctis murmured after a minute or two.  
  
Ignis smiled again. “He’s on his way.”  
  
“I’m right here,” Prompto’s voice chimed in from the doorway, hushed and solemn. He looked remorseful as Ignis beckoned him inside, shuffling his way over to the chair on the other side of the bed, seeming rather like a kicked puppy as he stared down at Noctis. “Hey, man.”  
  
Gladio appeared in the doorway, arms folded over his chest. “See? I told you he was okay.”  
  
Prompto shot him a dirty look, then sat in the chair, leaning his elbows on the bed as he regarded Noctis with concern. Noctis’s eyes were slipping closed again, a losing battle with sleep, but he gave Prompto a small smile.  
  
“I’m sorry about all this,” Prompto said, eyes drifting up to Ignis and Gladio.  
  
Gladio shrugged. “Not your fault. If we’re gonna blame anyone, let’s blame the snow.”  
  
Ignis hummed in agreement. “And, if anything,” he said, “We should be thanking you. If you hadn’t called Gladio tonight….”  
  
Prompto grimaced. “Yeah,” he murmured.  
  
“It’s good to have you on the team,” Gladio said. “You had his back tonight. You should be proud. Means he can count on you when it matters most.”  
  
Prompto looked over at him, clearly startled, before his expression morphed into a pleased smile.  
  
Noctis was still trying to keep up, eyes barely slits now. Ignis leaned forward, resting his free hand on Noctis’s hair, mindful of his injury. “Get some rest, Noct. We’ll be right here when you wake up.”  
  
Noctis’s eyes drifted shut as he settled into sleep, and the three of them settled themselves inside the room, preparing to watch over him throughout the night.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! <3
> 
> You can find me [here](http://ivorydice.tumblr.com/) at tumblr.


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